Events & special occasions | Hip to be Mom

Valentine’s Day is just a couple of weeks away. It would be nice to give the ones we love a little gift of love. I know when my kids were younger, they often looked forward to getting a little something, no matter how little. And even mothers and grandmothers appreciate a gift from the heart, if for nothing else, just for the fun of it.

Fossil Jewelry Heart Wrist Wrap (Silver)

This would make a great gift. I love how funky it is, and with an adjustable wrist length too so it’ll fit any size wrist. It even has the key to my heart .

Dillon Rogers Jewelry Love With Heart Bracelet – Medium (Bubble Gum)

I love leather accessories so you can definitely count me in on this one. Suited to teens whom I’ve noticed are really into multiple bracelets.

Bling by Wilkening Jewelry Couture Heart Earrings (Silver)

More for the discerning woman, this one! Very classy and can be worn with practically any outfit.

You can check out more of my Valentine’s Day gift ideas for him and her here.

The red post

Posted by Clairity Comments Off

Jan 182012

The traffic jam this morning was exceptionally horrendous. Aren’t they always? Yes but not nearly as bad unless some vehicle has broken down in the middle of the road and needs rv repair pronto. My usually short commute took me a full half hour.

This is the Chinese New Year rush, folks! There’s less than a week and counting before we enter the Year of the Dragon.

I guess I have it easy. Folks rush out to buy new clothes. We don’t. No big deal, we’re shopping practically all year and our last shipment from Macy’s and Forever21 arrived over Christmas.

Folks decorate their homes with lots of red. We don’t. Being a karma believer, I am less than inclined to believe that putting up red ornaments, red lanterns and lucky plants, and eating food with lucky names is going to change anything. If that’s all it takes to attract wealth, we’d be a worldful of raving billionaires, right? Oh well, to each his own.

Folks rush back to their hometowns. We stay put. There’s no way we’re making a road trip during the holiday season. We’re just happy to own the roads when everyone and their cat leaves the city.

I do, however, buy mandarin oranges which we love to eat, and some cookies for the odd guests who show up. Lesson learnt: I don’t buy a lot of cookies because they end up sitting there for months afterwards. I bought 4 crates of mandarin oranges this year, and that’s it, I’m done.

Yeah, I know, we’re different and we’re boring. But that’s just us!

Ringing in 2012

Posted by Clairity 2 Responses »

Jan 012012

I know this is supposed to be a brand new year and all but it just doesn’t feel like it. Maybe I’m caught in a time warp or something. This time last year, we’d just spent a freezing New Year’s Eve at Universal Studios, Hollywood and were headed south to Sea World, San Diego on the next lap of our tour of ~~duty~~ theme parks. That was some New Year’s to remember.

This New Year’s Eve was very different. We were out early doing a major grocery haul to stock up before prices shoot up overnight like they have a way of doing. I do this every year end. I don’t like to be caught out nor ripped off, so if it’s stuff we use every day, why not just buy them all up now? So we came home with 2 shopping carts full of stuff .

For dinner, I made lasagne and roast potato wedges just like my girls requested.

What an awesome combination! The potato wedges were crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside. Simply out of this world.

Raine was telling everyone, Eat slowly so you can savor every bite!

Dinner was simple but scrumptious. The fireworks, not so much. Truth is I could hardly keep my eyes open. Midnight is way, way past my bedtime. I might’ve been ~~sleep walking~~ sleep driving to the fireworks, I don’t know. What I do know is that the atmosphere was definitely not the same without Steev and all his photographic equipment in tow and the usual excitement about picking the perfect vantage point.

We really should’ve stayed home and watched a movie instead because the fireworks were, well, for lack of a better word, lacklustre this year. Not that it mattered though. We could barely make out a fraction of the fireworks shooting up over a clump of trees. And when we thought it was all over, turned out the guy manning the fireworks might’ve fallen asleep. As soon as we crawled back into the car, the fireworks started up again. Oh well!

As for the traffic snarls that kept us out for a half hour or more in previous years, we were in for a pleasant surprise. We breezed in and out of there like it was any other ordinary day. See what I mean about this new year’s not feeling like new year’s at all.

Well, okay, that was me. How did you ring in the new year?

Hip List 2011

Posted by Clairity 5 Responses »

Dec 312011

I know, I know, everyone’s excited to know what made it on my Hip List this year, right? So here we go…

I love New Year’s Eve. There’s an air of excitement of a new year and then there are those mixed feelings about wanting to move on yet wanting to hold on.
My Hip Bakery where my baking crew and I have been turning out fruit cake, blueberry cream cheese muffins, biscotti, chocolate chip cookies, … so much so I even broke my whisk and electric mixer!
Made our first-ever homemade quesadillas and smoothies and our favorite is the humble homemade banana smoothie – so easy, yummy and healthy. I wonder why I ever paid good money for a restaurant smoothie.

So excited about my Hip Bakery where I’m now joined by my own baking crew turning out fruit cake, blueberry cream cheese muffins, biscotti, chocolate chip cookies, … so much so I even broke my whisk and electric mixer!
Sally Hansen’s top coat is the da bomb. It lasts and lasts and no matter what I do, there’s no chipping my nails.

Some major distractions that rocked the Hip household included Raine starting college and learning to drive, Skye sitting for a major school exam, and me going back to work part time.
So proud we’ve been eating and drinking a lot healthier this year with huge cutbacks on fast food and soda. So take that, Mac and Carl!
I’m still totally freaked out about getting this gift from a totally unexpected person, ya, I know!
And we made our first big O without even lifting a finger!
Best movie goes to Mission Impossible, Ghost Protocol. I don’t know how you did it, Tom, playing spider at that height on a windy day like that, but good job!

So there it is. Now on to 2012 from the Hip family to yours with warm wishes of love, happiness and good health. Eat, drink (not if you’re driving), spare a thought for the less fortunate and be merry and safe! Happy New Year, everyone!!

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to whip up my homemade lasagne (by popular demand) and roasted potato wedges for our little New Year’s Eve nom-nom get-together!

We had a simple but scrumptious Christmas dinner this year. Just my kind of Christmas dinner, the kind that doesn’t take a whole lot of sweating, slaving and slogging in the kitchen but turns out to be such a hit all the same. With the girls helping this year, it was a case of more hands, light work.

The turkey, fresh out of the oven, looking gorgeous and golden.

The turkey, salad and my special mashed potatoes. All this to go with brown sauce, cranberry sauce and red wine (not shown here because we were so eager to dig in, we forgot to take a picture of the table).

My plate, which subsequently got hijacked by Skye, as I was busy carving the turkey .

Christmas is not a religious occasion for us but we love the holiday atmosphere, the spirit of sharing and the fun of it all. If you know us, you know we’re up for any excuse to celebrate!

And to top it off, our shopping (part of it shown here) arrived just in time… on Christmas Eve, if you can believe it! Don’tcha just lurve that little beagle plush toy, too cute!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Posted by Clairity Comments Off

Dec 242011

Just when I thought this entire week, aka the week before Christmas, aka my favorite time of the year, was headed for the dumps, well, long story short. After a super-stressful week, a silver lining appeared.

Skye, my budding 15-year-old canine psychologist and sous chef, made straight A’s in the major exam she took in October this year. That’s 7 A’s straight without attending a single hour of tutoring. I think that’s really something!

And lest you think I’m some tiger mom who cracks the whip on my kids, drowns them in books all day with no breaks, deprives them of the joys of childhood and inspires them by calling them garbage, let me confess that I’m far, far from being one. I don’t do any of that and they still come out with straight A’s, all 3 of my kids *roar* !

Steev and Raine also did really good in college this semester and I guess all of this has me strutting around like a peahen! Peahen? No, we’re having turkey and it’s not going to be one of those rip-off store-bought ones. I’m going to roast the turkey myself complete with potatoes, brown gravy, the works. Oh yeah!

Okay now, our nails are all done up and we are so ready for the holidays ! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all my lovely readers, tweeps and followers!